


Fire in the Spark

by Elindae



Series: Autobot Starscream Week [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Autobot Starscream, Autobot Starscream week, Drama, Starscream redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24484513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elindae/pseuds/Elindae
Summary: Starscream left Megatron's cruelty behind and betrayed the warlord in a way he never had before: he joined Optimus. But Megatron still haunts him on each of his missions, following him, hunting him, and wanting Starscream back.A scouting mission with Prime and the Autobots in the Arctic goes wrong when Megatron makes his debut. Only Starscream can fire the shot to send the warlord back. But a thousand years of terror catches up to Starscream and he realizes that he will have to do much more than just change sides in order to change his own ways.Written for Autobot Starscream Week
Series: Autobot Starscream Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768675
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Fire in the Spark

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in an AU where Starscream joined the Autobots after the events of the twenty-first episode of the series, "Partners." It's a part of the Unburied universe, the main fic I have in which Starscream becomes an Autobot.
> 
> Written for Autobot Starscream Week! (May 31st—June 6)

This was not Skyfire’s grave, but it felt like it.

A harsh cold wind blew out of the sky and slammed into Starscream’s frame. He and Optimus walked across the top of a glacier as the rest of the Autobots stood upon the snowy valley floor far below.

_“Did you find any energon yet?”_ Bumblebee shouted over their comms.

Optimus stood tall upon the glacier and scanned it with a frown. “I am afraid not.”

Starscream rolled his optics and shivered. He hated this wretched planet and its even more wretched weather. 

This was not where Skyfire had vanished, no. But the cold wind and the creak of the glacier beneath his pedes and the white merciless sky and—

“Starscream?” Optimus asked.

“Gah!” Starscream flinched back. “I’ll never get used to that!”

“Get used to what?”

“The way you turn around just… just to see if I’m fine. Megatron would never do that for me.”

Optimus hummed. “And I am not Megatron. He did not do many things correctly. He did not guide you correctly.”

“Oh dear, did you choose me to accompany you atop this glacier just because you wanted us to be alone together? A little chit-chat on top of a giant block of ice won't make me change my ways you know.”

“Perhaps I cannot convince you to change and be less scared of me. Or perhaps I _can_ convince you to change.” They continued to walk across the glacier as a snowy cold wind blew out of the sky and obscured their view of the rest of the Autobots in the valley far below.

Starscream rolled his optics. “Frag it, I’m tired of you emotionally dissecting me. I’m fine!”

Optimus turned around and frowned at Starscream. “No. You are not.”

“I swear, I’m fine!”

“He has manipulated you and instilled such fear into you that you can no longer allow others to guide you. Let me guide you.”

Starscream sighed. “I can’t change, Optimus. You know that.”

“And I know that you are wrong.”

Starscream opened his intake to protest, but then froze. The air shifted strangely and something buzzed. He looked around for the source of the disturbance and looked out over the sharp edge of the glacier.

If he were to drop off the glacier he would have to fly to safety. That wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the weather. He looked up into the icy sky and felt his spark clench in fear as the snowy wind shrieked by.

_—Starscream tried to fly through the storm to Skyfire but the storm was just too strong—_

No, there was no safety to be found in this frozen hellscape. There were only bad memories of lost shuttles and a desperate but ultimately fruitless search effort for a mech lost to the snow forever. Starscream clenched his talon and felt the ice within his grasp crack the same way his spark had on that terrible day so many years ago.

“Starscream?” Optimus asked softly.

Their comms crackled to life. _“Haha, energon!”_ Bulkhead laughed. The clink of energon crystals being pulled out of the snow clanged over the commline.

The air shifted again and Starscream’s optics widened. “No, no—”

Blaster fire rang out through the air. Optimus ran to the edge of the glacier and Starscream cautiously hid behind him and looked out past the Prime’s side. They both looked down over the ice shelf at a battlefield below.

A bright green groundbridge spun to life far beneath them. Starscream froze and his jaw dropped as a familiar frame emerged from the groundbridge’s depths. Megatron walked out of the bridge and his optics scanned the snowy field before him as drones ran out from behind him. His field flared with barely contained rage as he stepped out into the cold snow. His frame was below the glacier Optimus and Starscream were on top of, but Starscream still felt as if the warlord was right beside him.

“I… I need to do something,” Starscream whimpered as he began to shake. He had finally found a bot who respected him, a bot who actually looked over his shoulder to ensure if his soldiers were still there, and he was _not_ about to lose him. Starscream clutched at his missiles on his arms. He raised one of his arms and panic consumed his spark as he prepared to fire upon the warlord far down below.

Optimus’s optics widened. “Starscream, _no_ , you need to calm down, you need to change your ways! Firing impulsively is not what we must do here!”

“We need to stop him!”

“Let me guide you!”

“I can do this!” Starscream shouted as he fired his missile. He watched the slender red missile arc off into the air and down into the valley below—

And then promptly explode a dozen feet away from Megatron. Starscream collapsed back into the snow and watched in horror as Megatron slowly turned around to look back up at the glacier. 

He made optic contact with Starscream. Starscream shrieked and scuttled back from the edge. He’d hoped he’d never have to see those hungry red optics ever again, but there they were down below, waiting for him, _wanting_ him—

“I… I missed!” Starscream said in shock as his frame began to shake more and more.

“Do not panic,” Optimus said.

“How could I miss?! I’m the best shot around, and I _missed?_ I’ve managed to hit so many bots with my missiles, so what changed—?”

“Starscream... you shook too much.”

The sound of blasterfire and shouting echoed through the air. “I… what?” Starscream asked.

Optimus took a heavy vent. “Your arm shook too much. You did not aim properly to make the shot.” His field swelled with pity and Starscream recoiled from it. His processor went into overdrive and he looked down upon his single remaining missile.

He’d missed. He _never_ missed and had never expected a day would come when he would fail to aim properly. Then again, he had also never thought a day would come when he'd call Optimus Prime his leader.

“I will try to defeat Megatron from above,” Optimus said sternly as he transformed out his blaster.

Optimus fired a volley of blasters down into the valley below, each one aimed at Megatron.

Megatron's voice echoed through the wind and the air lit up with flashes of bright blue as each bolt shot down into the icy valley at the warlord below. Starscream stood far from the glacier's edge and waited. At any moment Optimus would give the all-clear, any moment now _—_

Optimus sighed heavily.

Starscream did not need to see the battlefield to know that each one of Optimus’s shots had missed. Prime frowned and his field grew colder and harder around him as he fired another volley of blaster bolts. Optimus stood there atop the glacier and stared down at the battlefield below. Determination and desperation filled his field.

A violet blaster bolt shot up from below and slammed into the side of the glacier only a few yards away from where Optimus stood. Starscream watched in frozen terror as a large icy section of the glacier fell off and plummeted to the ground far below. Cold laughter rang up into the air. Starscream froze. He’d heard that wretched laugh so many times before as Megatron had laughed and laughed as he beat him—

“I wish to engage my foe in battle..." Optimus began. His optics flared as he looked down at Megatron below. "But he is too far down below and it would cost us too much time to reach the bottom of the valley. By then the Decepticons will have already have fled. I can attack from afar, but my blaster bolts are not effective at this distance,” Optimus said. He walked away from the glacier's edge and looked back at Starscream.

Starscream clutched the single remaining missile on his arm.

Optimus’s optics widened at the same time Starscream’s did.

“Starscream…”

“No! No! Please no, I’ve had quite enough of Megatron for a lifetime! Don’t make me walk up to the edge and use my last missile to shoot him, _please_. I thought I could shoot him, but I was wrong, Prime. He'll just shoot _me._ ”

“I am of no use up here," Optimus said as he knelt down. "But you were built for long-range warfare. You can make the shot and end his rampage, I know you can.”

“If I walk up to the edge, then he will see me and have a clear shot at me and he will destroy me, do you know that? He’ll vaporize me and I’ll be lost to the snow the same way Skyfire was!”

Starscream stood there and vented heavily as fear thrummed in his spark. The sound of Megatron's fusion cannon boomed through the night over and over again as he fired off blast after blast at the rest of the Autobots down in the valley.

“This is your choice,” Optimus said. “You are no Skyfire. You are Starscream. Where he died, you will thrive. I believe in you. In the end, it is still your choice.” The air behind him lit up with bright bursts of red and blue as the Autobots fought against the Decepticons far down below. The air was alive with the flurry of battle, but in that moment everything seemed to calm down.

Optimus approached Starscream and placed his heavy and partially frozen servos atop the wide-opticed Seeker’s shoulders.

“I understand that I am asking a lot of you. If you feel brave enough to change your ways and trust in someone else for once as you stand upon the edge and fire at him... then you could save this mission. But if you are not ready then that is fine, Starscream. We will hold no grudge against you for not being ready to face Megatron down. There will be other missions and other sources of energon. This is your choice.” It was almost as if the Prime thought Starscream didn’t understand this was a choice. But then again, the thought was still new and foreign to Starscream. He had a _choice_ here. Not a command, not a direct order from a terrible warlord—

Just a choice. Just one missile.

  
But just one missile that could make a difference.

“If you are not ready for this then you will not be judged for it. If we need to retreat because you are not ready to face him, then so be it.”

Starscream took a deep vent and looked up at Optimus. What had he done to deserve the Prime?

Nothing. Precisely nothing. But he had been given a second chance nevertheless.

It would be easy to give in to the Prime’s kindness and allow himself to be returned back to the base, far far away from this frozen hellscape and from… _him_. The enemy, the tyrant, the abuser—

Megatron's angry roar echoed into the air from down below.

A retreat was possible.

But so was a victory.

“The fear won’t go away, will it?” Starscream asked. The words just burst out of his intake, but it’d been a question he had been dying to ask for a thousand years. 

Optimus frowned and shook his helm. “You are not ready to face him again. I have asked too much of you.”

“What?! No, no, no!” Starscream shouted as he ran up in front of Optimus. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare underestimate me!”

“I worry that I have asked too much of you too soon. I understand that facing Megatron is not easy for you, not since you left him.”

Starscream went silent.

“Do you not trust me?” Optimus asked.

Starscream scoffed. “I do, I just… I don’t trust in my ability to let others guide me. That is all. I can do this alone, I swear I can! So stop with the Primely moping and watch me!”

He took one step after another and slowly walked up to the edge of the glacier. The ice underneath his pedes creaked.

_—the glacier under his pedes creaked as it consumed Skyfire’s frame—_

His frame began to shake more and more with each step as he walked up to the cliff edge. The battlefield below became visible. The Autobots raced around the drones and exchanged red and blue baster bolts in a scintillating display of color.

And there he was. Far far down below, the mech who started this all, the mech he could run from but could never fully escape.

Megatron stood upon the snowy ground far beneath the glacier. He fired bolt after bolt at the Autobots and each one missed. He scowled. He was getting angry and when Megatron got angry he took it out on Starscream, _always_ on Starscream—

Starscream began to shake more and more. It had been so easy to attack the warlord so many other times, but now here he was, far up above Megatron, and yet he was still terrified.

“Because I now actually have something to lose,” Starscream whispered to himself as realization struck his frame.

  
Fear closed around his spark like a talon. He lifted his missile and pointed it right at Megatron as he charged through the snow.

Megatron moved away again. The warlord’s insane rampage across the battlefield continued on and on. Starscream bit his lip and tried to hold his arm steady, tried to point and aim and fire—

But his arm continued to shake. It shook and shook and shook and Starscream swore and dropped his arm. He clenched his arm and willed it to stop shaking and willed the fear to go away.

“Please change your ways and let me help you just this once,” Optimus asked gently.

Starscream’s spark flared in his chestplate. “No, you’ll frag it up, you know that?!”

“And how do you know that? Starscream…” Optimus said as he leaned down. “You must trust me. You are shaking too much to fire the missile yourself. You cannot afford to miss.”

“If you fire it wrong you’ll bring this whole glacier down, you know that?! And I’m not in the mood to have a snowday!”

“Let me guide you,” Optimus said. He reached up and gently took ahold of Starscream’s arm.

Starscream scowled and resisted the urge to wrench his arm away.

“You need to change your ways and let others trust you and guide you.”

“I can’t change, okay?! I can’t trust others!” Starscream groaned. A scream echoed up from the battlefield below. 

“You have been relying upon yourself for guidance for thousands of years now. For once let me guide you. Change your ways just this once,” Optimus said softly.

“The last time I let another bot guide me, that bot… that bot…”

For a single moment the cacophony of noise from the battlefield below was muffled by the sound of a blast of wind.

Optimus finished for him. “That bot abused you.”

The flurry of wind blew past and the moment of silence ended as Megatron released another earth-shattering roar from down below.

_“This is your choice.”_ The memory of Optimus’s voice echoed around and around in Starscream's helm. 

Starscream looked up at the edge of the glacier beyond. The moment he stepped up to the edge was the moment he’d become visible and exposed to _him._

“Optimus, just…” Starscream began. The urge to call off the mission was so strong. He’d called off hundreds of missions before when they got too rough and he felt he was in danger. If he was not willing to fire then Optimus wouldn’t force him.

Starscream bit his lip. 

“Just—just hold me steady, okay? Don’t you even _think_ about dropping me over the edge!”

He shakily stood up to the edge again and looked down at the battlefield below. Megatron charged through the snow and his cannon shone like a hot violet sun as he fired it again and again. Starscream lifted his arm and pointed his last missile right at the erratic warlord. His arm began to shake as fear closed around his talon once again. A warm frame pressed against his back and Optimus gently took ahold of Starscream's frozen and shaky arm. He moved his arm so that it was pointed right at Megatron as he charged yet again.

"When was the last time you let someone guide you? The last time you let someone hold you before you... changed?" Optimus asked.

Starscream blinked the snow out of his optics and took a deep vent. "That last someone... his name was Skyfire."

Starscream took a deep vent _—_

And then fired.

His missile shot off from his arm and arced down onto the ground down below. Megatron’s optics had only a fraction of a second to widen before the missile slammed into him. Starscream gasped and watched in shock as a cloud of fire spread out and bloomed into the sky right where Megatron had once stood. 

A distant roar shook the air and vibrated through the glacier itself. Megatron pulled his charred frame out of the inferno and stumbled to his pedes. The snow around him melted and sluiced down his frame in miniature waterfalls as he turned his red-hot optics up to glare at the glacier. He turned to yell at his drones, but his faceplate fell in dismay at the sight of the scattered drones all around him. The inferno Starscream’s missile had created blazed on and on and lit the snowy ground in bright red. The Autobots eagerly raced in and grabbed whatever energon they could from the snow before they then drove away and into the blizzard.

Megatron's optics widened at the sight of Starscream far above him. The two of them made optic contact and neither of them took a vent.

Starscream felt his spark freeze in his chestplate, and it wasn’t due to the cold.

Megatron unflinchingly stared right back as his own drones burned to husks behind him. 

For just a few precious moments the two bots stared at each, analyzed each other—

And then Megatron smiled.

Starscream knew that smile. It was the smile of a madmech, of a bot who gained happiness by taking other bot’s happiness away. He lifted his fusion cannon and it lit up with a hot violet hum.

Starscream’s optics widened. His grip on Optimus’s servo tightened and he looked down at the hot violet barrel that leered up at him from down below.

“Optimus—!” 

He was yanked away from the edge. A flurry of snow went into the air as Starscream fell backwards. A strong pair of arms wrapped themselves around him and pulled him away from the edge. A violet plasma bolt shot through the edge of the cliff right where Starscream had once stood. Fragments of ice and snow showered down from the air and fell across Optimus’s and Starscream’s frames.

Silence returned. The hot roar of the fusion cannon died down and only the sound of the whistling wind became audible. 

_“Wretch!”_ Megatron shouted. His angry voice echoed through the air.

Starscream slowly lifted his helm from the snow. The first thing he saw was a red chestplate.

Optimus turned his helm and smiled at the Seeker.

“You can change, Starscream. You _can_. You just did.”


End file.
